WHEN discussing development finance, it is also important to talk about climate finance, says Attorney-General and Minister of Economy Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum.
He highlighted this while officiating at the climate change and migration project launch at the Holiday Inn in Suva yesterday.
Mr Sayed-Khaiyum said Fiji lost one third of its gross domestic product (GDP) within 48 hours in 2016 after Severe Tropical Cyclone Winston.
He said this was equivalent to $US1.2 billion ($F2.5b) to $US1.3b ($F2.8b).
“That is very substantial, we are still paying for the costs of that, we are still rebuilding,” Mr Sayed-Khaiyum said.
“Last year we had three cyclones in one year, it may not be as intensive and destructive as Winston, nonetheless it does put a strain on your budget.
“We talk about Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the ability to achieve the stated objective of SDGs becomes a lot more limited if you do not have access to finance.”
Mr Sayed-Khaiyum said such matters must not be isolated, but a holistic approach must be taken in order to understand the dynamics of economics, to understand the dynamics of access to finance and also the dynamics to concessional funding.
“All of that comes hand in hand in this because your ability to respond to this phenomenon of forced migration or dislocation within your own country will not be necessarily fulfilled or you won’t be able to achieve that fully if you do not have access to funds and that is very important,” he said.
The objective of the project is to support a regional human security-based response to climate change and disaster-related migration, displacement and planned relocation and to also ensure that migrants and communities benefit from safe labour migration.
International Organization for Migration (IOM) Fiji chief of mission Mahym Orazmuhammedova said this project would build on the lessons learned and progress made by the European Union-funded Pacific climate change and migration project which was implemented in June 2013 to December 2016.
A stakeholder meeting on climate and disaster displacement in the Pacific was also conducted after the launch.
